Fri 11, Sat 12 & Sun 13 Jul, 1-5pm
Gallery 2
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our exhibitions as accessible as possible for every visitor. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
For complete access information about the gallery, please visit https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/.
Helena Goldwater presents gathering in, a three-day durational performance installation that changes over time. The work unfolds on the site where the former Whitechapel Library once thrived, known for a time as the ‘University of the Ghetto’ – a place of reading, learning, questioning. A space to think of the possibilities of the future, a place to dream and a haven from the noise and demands from the outside. Goldwater is interested in how the process is the work, and how slowness can offer intimate readings. Working over 12 hours, the artist transforms a range of materials from one state to another, in order to ask questions. Questions about what is hidden, unseen, lost and revealed; about those who went before us, their labour, what we have learned from them; and how we navigate place – in our body, a site, an area, a land.
This is a durational performance over four hours, and audiences are welcome to drop in and out of the performance.
Helena Goldwater works across performance art, installation, and painting. Since the 1980s her performances have focused on the quality of certain materials and how they inhabit a space. The works are usually durational, repeating, revolving and returning. The labour is endless, exploring the impossibility of certainty, posing questions about belonging, and how we navigate our place.
Goldwater’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including, Action: A provisional history of the 90s, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2021); 1st Venice International Performance Art Week, Venice (2012); gut flora, MOCA London (2018); If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, de Appel, Amsterdam (2011); Tate Britain (2012) and Liverpool (2003); and Western Front, Vancouver (1999).
Goldwater also researches and compiles material on UK performance art histories of the 1970s and 1980s. She co-curated (with Rob La Frenais, Alex Eisenberg/Live Art Development Agency) an online resource about 1980s UK-based Performance Art entitled, Edge of an Era.
She is the Course Leader for BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
